


Negative

by polche



Series: Everyone Deserves a Second Chance [4]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, M/M, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Sister Complex, lets not fool ourselves here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-03 14:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16327505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polche/pseuds/polche
Summary: Mithos doesn’t want a lot. He just wants to be loved. The universe tries his best steal anyone who could love him away, so Mithos just has to hold on tighter, dig his claws in until there's nothing left to take.





	Negative

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something a little different here. Not sure how well it works, but I like it anyway!
> 
> I have an explanation of what's going on around all this here in the end notes if anyone's curious or confused about what I made up wrt Mithos' plans as Lord Yggdrasill.

He strokes his fingers in light circles over the raised lines on your back as you lie on the mosaicked floor of the chapel. He likes it here: the stained glass dome casts everything in a gentle blue light, transforming your wheat-gold hair into a gentle green. You know what he’s doing - you’re too smart not to. Sometimes you wish you weren’t. But he’s right, even if he doesn’t say it. It should have been her. It should always have been her.

“I found one,” you say. “We can start the next phase.” He doesn’t need the explanation but you give it anyway, the low hum of your voice filling the silence in a way unique to yourself. A small selfishness you allow now and then.

“How close?” The others say he sounds monotone, sarcastic, no matter what he says, but you can tell the difference. There’s a hunger in it now. He doesn’t hide it, either because he thinks you can’t tell, or because he knows it wouldn’t matter.

An emotion stirs within you, but you can’t quite tell what it is. She left a void in your heart, after the transformation already numbed most of your feeling. Knowing yourself, it could be fear, or envy - not jealousy because you know you never had him at all - or sick satisfaction.

“Not close enough by far. But she’s devout. Phase two should go off without a hitch.”

“Apprehensive?”

He knows your lack of interest in women intimately, but that’s not what he means.

“They don’t look alike.”

It doesn’t matter what she looks like, as long as she - her bloodline - makes a suitable vessel. You’re still grateful, because you don’t know what you’d do if you lost him, too.

“It wouldn’t stop me,” you say, unsure if you’re responding to your last words or thoughts. “It doesn’t matter,” refers to both.

Even if you were the only one left in the whole world, you’d still complete your mission.

“Only a hero could have such single-minded determination.” He sounds mocking, but he truly respects your devotion. It’s something that had been alien to him, something he’d worked towards but which remained elusive - until her. He wants what he can’t have; in this you are exactly the same.

His fingers are in your hair now, trailing the long strands with laser focus. Part of you wants to rip them out.

You sit up to wrap your hands around his neck with a smile and pretend you don’t want them at his throat instead. He knows your smiles, should know this one is fake.

It’s a beautiful, subtle thing you've perfected ever since you took this form. Lips stretched loosely, light crinkles in the corners of your eyes, as if you’re not even aware you’re doing it. It lacks the facade of innocence you once draped yourself in, replaced instead with a serenity you’ve never been capable of. It’s more well-practiced than the one you gave her so very long ago, but he’s also had more time to see through it.

It should have been him instead. Any of them. Not her. Anyone but her.

“Can I help?” he asks, looking up at you through half-lidded eyes, dark in the low light. You’re not sure if he caught you in your rumination or if he’s still talking about phase two. He can’t help with phase two. He can’t help with your rumination. You’re not sure if he really wants to, or if he’s merely showing the expected facsimile of support.

It doesn’t matter.

When he looks at you like that - when he looks at her through you like that - the blue light dancing over the smooth angles of his face, hair mussed out of its delicate style by the evening’s exertions, that devilish smile that says everything and nothing at once, nothing matters. Except her. Always her.

“What did you have in mind?”

He always has something in mind. Whether it’s a plan or an experiment. You wish he could see you the way you do him. You’re sure no two people could understand each other the way you do.

“You should think of me when you’re with her.” Like he does when he’s with you.

He knows obsession. He knows you will. You want to fuck the thought of her out of his mind, replace her with yourself in every fiber of his being. You won’t, because it shouldn’t be you. She’s the one who deserves to be there.

She’s the only one who ever deserved to be alive.

“Then you’d better give me something to remember.”

You’ll bring her back.

He traces the bones of your hips with teasing touches. You slide one hand down his chest.

No matter what happens, you’ll bring her back.

He tips his head back and you follow the curve of his adam’s apple with your tongue. His legs wrap around your waist when you slot yourself between them.

Even if you have to sacrifice everything, you’ll bring her back.

**Author's Note:**

> This would probably take place in the first 1000 years after Martel's death. Before the first change-over between flourishing and declining world. Not too soon, but soon enough that there are still people who've lived through the War itself and idolized the group of heroes.  
> One of them is Mithos' unnamed partner here - let's call him Curtis - another half-elf who became obsessed with Martel's personality and healing powers, and sought out the lads when she was killed in order to help out.  
> Mithos bonded with him due to their shared traits (sharp mind, obsessive personality, devotion to Martel), and they encouraged each other to have fewer scruples over the time they worked together. Mana signatures would have already been common knowledge in magitech, but through unethical experiments, Curtis found out that two entities with similar enough signatures could swap consciousness provided some pretty esoteric qualifications were met.  
> This became the core of Project Mana. Phase one is the Church of Martel: Mithos using his power, charm and angel traits to establish a following in Martel's name for him to manipulate. Phase two is the Mana Lineage: to genetically engineer the perfect vessel for Martel's soul, using selective breeding to get as close as possible, since family tends to have pretty close mana signatures - Curtis' first successful soul transfer was between identical twins.  
> So, being Martel's closest living relative, Mithos kills two birds with one stone: having the Mana Lineage descended from angels and therefore even tighter in his control, and inching their signature closer to Martel herself.  
> Phase three is the soul transfer experiments and phase four is living happily ever after. It doesn't go so well.
> 
> Yeah Mithos' partner is Jade Curtiss from Tales of the Abyss, because I have no shame and fomicry segues perfectly into what Mithos is trying to do with reviving his sister.


End file.
